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Without any goals, this revolution will not go anywhere. Thus I will use this first blog post to define the "internet revolution", the goals I hope to achieve, and the means in which I will do so.

First and foremost, I would like to declare that this revolution is not meant to be violent or threatening. I am not here to advocate dangerous political positions. This revolution is in no way homophobic, xenophobic, racist, or an attempt to send the world back to the 19th century. Politically I would say it is moderately Libertarian in its roots, in that I would like to see fewer government regulations in both our daily lives and the actions of corporations, but at the same time, this is not a cry of anarchy and chaos.

My ultimate goal of this revolution is to get people to use the internet to its fullest potential and open up to the world around them, rather than shutting off everyone who threatens their worldview. Instead of simply deleting, unfriending, blocking, or otherwise distancing ourselves from things that bother us, we should be direct and discuss our frustrations even if it risks offending or annoying others.

The internet is a place where you are as anonymous as you choose to be. But for me, I've never taken that strategy. When I was 12 years old and had my domain Videokid.com up and running, my decision to name my site "Jesse's Cool World" and share pictures of myself, pets, and my family members made it so people knew who I was. Other people were not so honest. Rather than be amongst the youngest members of a message board, they would inflate their age.

There are several reasons to lie about one's age online. To access information or entertainment that busybodies have deemed inappropriate for your age, to have conversations with people older than you that wouldn't talk to you if you revealed your true age, and inversely (and more frighteningly), to speak with people underage that you shouldn't be conversing with as an adult.

In modern times, people are forced to give out too much personal information in order to access content that normally would come at a premium. Instead of paying a fee for this content, we instead sacrifice our privacy to receive targeted advertisements and potentially get addicted to play simple games that convince us to pay a small fee to get more "lives" or "energy" because we need to play that game right now and can't wait another 15 minutes for the recharge that will occur without payment.

In the past, having "turns" or "energy" or "activity points" within a game made sense. Bulletin board systems (BBSes) had limited resources and players only had a short amount of time to access them as to allow others to use it as well. Thus, players had to be discouraged from spending all their time in a single game. But now, with always-on connections and various accounts connected to one another, the limit on activity often leads to us paying for instant access rather than waiting.

And I think it's really gone too far. While the various Zynga and King games claim to have some modicum of educational value, that is hardly their first goal. They are attracted above all else by profits, and while profit itself is just a motivator and not a cause of evil, the way that companies choose to make money is questionable. The worst games I've seen are some terrible games that charge $0.99 upfront for a game that is often of lower quality than free games, and they still offer additional paid content on top of that.

As stated earlier, my goal of this revolution is to get people to use the internet to its fullest potential and not hide away from others in tiny social circles. And my means of doing so will be to create computer games that have educational value as one of their main goals rather than a side effect of playing a simple and addictive game that vaguely improves "motor skills".

For a first game I would like to see an economics simulator that allows people to start off as farmers and go through various stages as they improve their lot. They would start as a firm that was stuck in "perfect competition", with a flat (perfectly elastic) demand curve and thus they could not adjust prices to their liking due to have very little impact on the market.

Then after showing success at the first stage, they could enter a "monopolistic competition" where there is some difference between each firm and the products they offered but still many different options and thus not a true monopoly, though with differences between each firm there would be some similarities with a monopoly.

I would like to hear from others in regards to creating a game that simulates economics and teaches kids how the economy works. And as a final note, I think it's time we encouraged more philosophy and other reading material into public high schools. Instead of simply reading literature, people should be reading Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other philosophers in order to encourage critical thinking skills, rather than just writing simple essays about the "symbolism" in various works of fiction.

No, this revolution will not promise quick profits. But I am a sustained marketer. I will be here for a long time, and I'm here to stay. I am not interested in creating a new fad but into shaping the world into a better place where people think for themselves more.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope to hear from you regarding my "internet revolution" goals.